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Antarananda · 11-08-2006, 06:50 AM

I personally would like to first qualify the word "happy" vis-a-vis a state of mind that I usually refer to as "bliss". Now, in my personal experience through meditation practice over the past 15 years, I believe it is humanly impossible to be "happy all the time", because happiness/sadness are the classic pairs of opposites. There is no happiness without sadness, no pleasure without pain. It is the nature of the mind to swing between emotions of happiness/sadness, and contrary to what we believe so strongly, happiness is not "good" and pain "bad".

I don't think I am necessarily better off if I only rarely experience pain, because I have trained myself (and continue to do so) to become a witness to all emotions, "positive" and "negative" that ebb and flow in the mind. Through this process of witnessing, one achieves a state of equanimity, and that is what I call joy, or bliss. This bliss is the underlying reality no matter what dominant emotion surfaces in our consciousness; the state of true joy which is unshakeable, and the more I learn to remain connected with this "gap" between rising thoughts and emotions and impulses to react in my mind, the less I find myself swinging unconsciously between happiness and sadness. That to me is true emotional mastery.

11-08-2006, 06:50 AM	#3 (permalink)
Antarananda Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: India / Los Angeles Posts: 232	I personally would like to first qualify the word "happy" vis-a-vis a state of mind that I usually refer to as "bliss". Now, in my personal experience through meditation practice over the past 15 years, I believe it is humanly impossible to be "happy all the time", because happiness/sadness are the classic pairs of opposites. There is no happiness without sadness, no pleasure without pain. It is the nature of the mind to swing between emotions of happiness/sadness, and contrary to what we believe so strongly, happiness is not "good" and pain "bad". I don't think I am necessarily better off if I only rarely experience pain, because I have trained myself (and continue to do so) to become a witness to all emotions, "positive" and "negative" that ebb and flow in the mind. Through this process of witnessing, one achieves a state of equanimity, and that is what I call joy, or bliss. This bliss is the underlying reality no matter what dominant emotion surfaces in our consciousness; the state of true joy which is unshakeable, and the more I learn to remain connected with this "gap" between rising thoughts and emotions and impulses to react in my mind, the less I find myself swinging unconsciously between happiness and sadness. That to me is true emotional mastery.